They’re bulky, uncomfortable and are basically a blank canvas for embarrassing sketches from your friends. But the plaster and fiberglass variety is also cheap and, frankly, good enough to not prompt much investment in innovation.

Jake Evill was all too familiar with this problem. After breaking his hand in what he tongue-in-cheek calls a “heroic rescue” of his friend during a fight, the recent graduate of Victoria University in Wellington, New Zealand, was saddled with a plaster cast for a few months.“I was surprised by just how non-user friendly those cumbersome things are,” Evill said. “Wrapping an arm in two kilos of clunky, and soon to be smelly and itchy, plaster in this day and age seemed somewhat archaic to me.”